Genres

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance sent up some red flags when it was announced; it didn't have Snake as a playable character, it wasn't part of the main Metal Gear storyline, and it was an action game with very little of Metal Gear's genre-defining stealth gameplay. However it was developed by Platinum Games, the studio behind Bayonetta, so it wasn't such a surprise that Revengeance turned out to among the best action games of 2013. Alas, it was only available for consoles, leaving PC Gamers out of the loop until now.

Persona 4 Arena, developed by Arc System Works and published by Atlus, takes the stars of the critically acclaimed JRPG Persona 4, and places them in a 2D style fighting game, where they are forced to do battle with one another in order to progress, and must discover why their close friend Teddy is hosting the fighting tournament, P-1 Grand Prix.

Survival games don't generally tend to be about survival. They tend to be about avoiding pitfalls and dangerous enemies. That's largely because, let's face it, actual survival - the drinking pee, eating rats, building shelter sort of survival - just isn't fun in a video game. Except it is. Don't Starve proves that, done right, simply making it through a week on your own can be incredibly rewarding, and addictive.

Mario and friends are back, in a brand new 3D adventure. Belonging to the same family as the 3DS's Super Mario 3D Land, Super Mario 3D World adds in a massive focus on co-op and a few new abilities that make looking back in on the Mushroom Kingdom well worth it. There's even some actual plumbing, which is probably a pretty major twist.

Valkria Chronicles 3, the tactical RPG from SEGA, has finally been translated into English for the very first time. This is great news for all the English fans out there who were yet to get to play the latest in the franchise! It will be interesting to see how it's rated compared to countries like Japan who have been playing it for a while.

Excalibur is a 2D mobile action MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online game) developed by R2Games for iOS and Android devices. The game allows player to choose from 3 unique character classes and send them on a medieval adventure alone or with friends, battling Knights, Goblins and Dragons in order to retrieve the legendary sword of heroes, Excalibur.

Killzone is one of Sony's staple franchises, partly because of how fantastic they always look. The gameplay is always hit and miss, you'll either love it or hate it. The heavier weaponry, the harder-to-kill enemies - this isn't Call of Duty or Battlefield, and it never tries to be. Killzone: Shadow Fall is the latest in the series and one of the lead launch games on PlayStation 4. Can it hold the next generation on its shoulders?

After the shocking conclusion to the first season of Telltale's The Walking Dead, Clementine is back. The timing is perfect: the TV show has hit mid-season after a shocking finale and multiple sales, including the Telltale Humble Bundle, means there are few of us that haven't at least started the first set of episodes.

There was a time, not so long ago, where the very height of video gaming was going from one side of a set of platforms to the other. There were variations on that, but they effectively tested your timing and muscle memory more than anything else. Putty Squad is from that era of games, and it feels like it. If you want one of your first next-gen experiences to be something ignored for almost two decades, look no further.

The biggest mistake people made concerning the Call of Duty franchise this year was in presuming that it would be "next-gen." Call of Duty is one of the biggest entertainment IPs in the world, they're not going to do anything that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 can't handle. That's not to say that the PlayStation 4 version of Call of Duty: Ghosts isn't worth playing, or even upgrading to. You just have to expect a cross-gen Call of Duty sequel.